The Diaries of Me
by moanarch
Summary: A wise, albeit infuriating, man once said "memories become stories when we forget them". I wish to write my own stories; maintain my memories in their original forms, before I have forgotten too much to recall them myself. In all my complexity, I am Me. And I invite you to read some of my diaries; my stories... My memories.
1. Prologue

**Hello there!  
** **Please bare with me, I'm new to FanFiction (in fact this is my first fic), and I'm only just starting to get back into my writing after some nasty health issues.** **It might take time before I fully capture the talent I use to have with the written word, but I promise this story, and the others to come, will improve with time.** **Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy writing it.**

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A wise, albeit infuriating, man once said _"memories become stories when we forget them"._

I wish to write my own stories; maintain my memories in their original forms, before I have forgotten too much to recall them myself.

Throughout the years, and I have seen many millennium, and I have been known by many names. I remember very few of them, and only one really stuck. I have been loved, and I have been feared. I have been a savior, and a murderer. A daughter, a mother, a lover. I have been many things, but only one has been as constant as my appearance. I have always been Me.

In all my complexity, I am Me. And I invite you to read some of my diaries; my stories... My memories.

But my dear reader, before you continue to delve into the pages of this long life of mine, I would like to clear something up.

I have lived so long that time has become, ironically, a thing of the past for me. Dates and times have become useless voids, for my time here is endless. And endless time is a painful, dangerous, and strangely beautiful thing. Counting the seconds in a day can only lead to insanity.

My memory is but a fog to me; I can rarely recall my past, or the faces it contains. And I suppose that really is the purpose for my diaries. I like to read them from time to time myself. Even if I have no recollection of the events inside.

I have decided, as I sit here waiting at the end of the universe for him, to rewrite each of my diaries. Or at least the key points. If all goes to plan, my stories will be scattered throughout history, discovered by readers, and those seeking adventure other than their own. Those seeking answers.

And they shall be the way I intend them to be.

These are the stories.

These are the diaries of _Me._


	2. How It Began

_My dear friend, we begin where it all began._

At first a shock surged through her body, swiftly followed by darkness. Open, looming darkness. She could feel the coldness of death clutching her. She knew she was gone, her light blown out. Her deep brown eyes could no longer see, and her boyish hair lay limp against her skull. The copper taste in her mouth would still be there when she woke again. It seemed like an endless time had passed. She screamed, over and over, yet no one could hear her. And just as she felt she could scream no more, she felt crushed. As though something was pushing her down, pushing her through the darkness and onto solid ground. She felt weighted, sinking. Like the world in all its entirety had fallen on top of her. And then there was light.

She struggled to lift her lids again, her eyes rolling in their sockets like marbles shaken in a bowl. She just wanted to seek him out, the one they called The Doctor, the one who had convinced her to put that deadly helmet on. The one who believed in her. The one that had condemned her to die. She wanted to scream at him, to ask him _why_. But part of her knew he played a part in her return.

And then she spotted him. The strange man in strange rags, with his curling stony hair. He was leaving.

"Thank you." Ashildr said, her meek voice nothing but a mere whisper. Yet The Doctor still heard. "Thank you." She uttered again as he turned to look upon her.  
 _Say something, please say something_. She thought.  
But he didn't say a word. He smiled, and he left. Without explaining a thing.

The girl woke in a sweat from yet another dream. The same dream that had haunted her nights for almost but one moon. The same dream that came to her as a hellish nightmare of truth. Yet every night a fragment of how it began seemed to vanish, as if plucked from her mind by a monster. Stolen by the same being that gave her the life she now lived.

"How is this the oldest memory I have?" Ashildr asked herself, shaking her weary head. "I can't even remember my mother. I assume I had one, for if not, how could I be here? But how could I be gone one moment, and back the next?" She crouched by the bed of the stream and cupped her hands. Pouring water over her tired face she began to sob.  
"If he had told me, if he had explained! I could have saved at least one of them."

She was trying to fight another memory. A recent event that shook her to her bones.

"Why did he just leave? How could he abandon me!" She screamed. Her inhuman screams echoed through the mountains that surrounded her as the memory of loss flooded into her mind. A visual reminder of how she lost all that she knew to be home.

She screamed in vain as she recalled the events of the night prior. As she watched her village burn once again.


	3. A Second Time Dying

The sun was beginning to set on another day within the Viking village and Ashildr was returning from the fenced field where her people milked their cattle.  
With a pale of milk hanging on one arm, she noted the strange feeling in the air. It was still, quiet. Too quiet. And a foul smell of burning clung to the air like bark to a tree. Then, with a bite, the silence was broken by a shrill cry. A scream of agony coming from the distance.  
The wooden pale dropped to the earth with a clunk, it's watery white contence spilling onto the soil beneath her feet.  
Without hesitation Ashildr began to run towards her village, fearful and afraid of what she may find when she got there.

Black smoke bellowed from the windows in their shacks, and more screams filled the sky. Cries of infants, and the gargling noise unmistakably from someone whom had their throat torn open.  
She continued to run through the chaos until she saw the one thing she feared the most. At the opening to her home she saw him. Her father's body splayed out on the floor like a pile of cloth. Lifeless.  
She dropped to her knees, tears stinging her eyes, and clutched his hands to her chest. His blood was seeping into her clothes, coating her skin.  
"Help!" She screamed. "Doctor, help!" She pleaded.  
And then she had a thought. The tile.  
The tile that hung around her neck since the day she died. The tile that was said to bring everlasting life to whomever she gifted it to.  
She began to lift it from where it rested when a rough voice rang in her ears.

"Stand up boy. Face your killer like a man." The voice almost sounded taunting. "Didn't you hear me boy? Get to your feet and die like a man!" The stranger yelled.  
"I am not a boy!" Ashildr screamed as she turned her head. She refused to leave her father, but she wanted to see the person responsible for her pain.

The man was more beast than anything. Covered in more hair than even the oldest in her village. His face almost seemed like that of the lions that roamed the mountains. Cat-like.  
She turned to look upon her father but one more time.  
"I promise I'll bring you back." She whispered.  
And then the searing pain began as a sward cut through her flesh like a spear through water. One strike above her shoulder, almost severing her arm clean. And then a final blow through her back. She felt the blow break through her rib cage, grazing her spine before protruding through her abdomen. And as she lay on the dirty ground, rivers of blood flowing from her wounds, she saw them set fire to the fallen around her. Burning it all before the intruders left with what they could plunder. Unaware that through her dying eyes Ashildr could see it all.

As the flames around her grew higher, a darkness shrouded Ashildrs view. And once again she slipped away from the world.  
For a second time, Ashildr died.

But death greeted her with another dream.  
She could see a familiar face, but it took time to recognise who the beautiful features belonged to.  
"Ashildr!" The soft voice hummed.  
"Ashildr!" The voice grew louder.  
"Ashildr! Hello me!" The voice was clear now.  
"Ashildr! I can't do this alone!"  
It was the Clara woman, and she was scared.

Ashildr woke with a jump, her heart racing. She could feel her skin healing; netting together like a spider's web until she was whole again.

She cast a glance around her to find nothing by smouldering ashes where her family and home previously lay broken. And then she looked back to where her father was. Only, her father was no longer splayed lifelessly before her. All that was left of her last parent was the scraps of his remains, blowing away in the chilling breeze.

She clenched her jaw, knowing she was too late to save the only person she had come to love more than life itself.  
"I'm sorry." She muttered, refusing to cry.  
"I will find him." Ashildr promised. "I will find The Doctor, and I will make him fix this."

As she walked into her future she couldn't help but think of the vision she had of the Clara woman. Or more importantly, the feelings she felt towards her. The warmth that radiated through her body when she heard Clara's voice, the comfort that embraced her when she saw her beautiful features. And the pure dread that shook her when she saw the fear on Claras face.

Ashildr knew it was more important now than ever that she found The Doctor, not only to get back what she had lost. But to help the Clara woman too.


End file.
